


all i ask

by Anonymous



Category: Tennis no Oujisama | Prince of Tennis
Genre: M/M, Mobile Games, background oshigaku / golden pair
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-04
Updated: 2018-08-04
Packaged: 2019-06-21 14:53:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15560205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Everyone is really into the new rhythm game 'Sports Is Fun!' (SIF! for short), and Ryou is starting to feel neglected.





	all i ask

Everyone is really into the new rhythm game 'Sports Is Fun!' (SIF! for short), and Shishido is starting to feel neglected.

 

Ryou isn’t jealous or anything lame like that. He and Choutarou have their own lives, their own circle of friends; unlike certain other doubles pairs, they can respect that sharing the same side of the court doesn’t necessarily translate to sharing every hour of the day, too. Ryou’s a reasonable guy. He got a haircut yesterday – nothing as dramatic as last year, but a sweet trim off the sides to get it nice and shiny for practice. All he’s asking for is a small compliment, you know? A little gesture of acknowledgement; maybe a faint blush, the sort of colour that paints Choutarou’s cheeks a really pretty shade of pink.

 Choutarou isn’t even sitting at the Hyoutei table.

“Get over it,” scoffs Gakuto, peering over Ryou’s shoulder to spy on the sickening scene unfolding at the next table over. “So he’s gone and made some new friends. There’s nothing wrong with that; doubles partners should be supportive of each other’s social lives, right, Yuushi?”

“One moment,” Oshitari says, stabbing at his phone. “I’m in the middle of a really important argument with some idiot who thinks the room looks better with an indoor racetrack instead of a cosy fireplace and bookshelf full of romance novels.”

“ _Yuushi_ ,” Gakuto tries again, putting on his best whine. Unfortunately, whatever strange interior design discourse is going on over Oshitari’s phone seems to be taking up his full attention. He seems completely oblivious to Gakuto’s increasingly frustrated calls; he doesn’t even look up when Gakuto moon vaults over his head onto the dinner table.

If Ryou was a better person, he’d maybe feel sorry for Gakuto. As it is, he’s too busy feeling sorry for himself and his neglected haircut. “See what I mean?”

Gakuto plops down on the chair next to him, red-faced and breathing hard. “Point taken,” he says, still scowling at Oshitari. “I peeked at Yuushi’s phone screen while I was yelling at him, and I honestly can’t play doubles with someone who thinks it’s appropriate to paint walls that ugly shade of puke green.”

“It’s olive chartreuse!” snaps Oshitari suddenly, and it’s almost sad seeing Gakuto perk up at even that failure of a response before realizing that Oshitari is still completely immersed in his argument with the random idiot – the random idiot who, unfortunately for Oshitari, seems to have far better taste in wallpaper.

 

With Gakuto on his side, Ryou feels far more confident strolling down to the gym in search of a good workout to clear his mind. Four kilometres on the treadmill, two hundred push-ups, and he’s certainly not thinking of the soppy expression that had crossed Choutarou’s adorable face when he’d seen that Rikkai brat pull a SUGDMSR. Ryou’s not a complete loser – he’s familiar with SRs and URs and all the other acronyms, but what sort of company needs a seven-letter acronym to express how rare their cards are? Nobody’s even going to remember what it stands for, with the exception of Tooyama Kintarou, who Ryou has heard begging Echizen for his starter account with the five Super Ultra Great Delicious Mountain Smash Rares.

And now, apparently, Ryou himself. Shaking off the cold sweat that trickles down his spine at the thought, Ryou picks up a dumbbell and starts a new set of reps, whistling to himself to keep his mind occupied. In spite of his best efforts, he still finds himself drifting back to the image of Choutarou at dinner, sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with people not half as handsome as Ryou.

 _“Sports is Fun!_ ” a youthful voice shouts, startling him out of his reverie and making him drop the dumbbell on his foot. He glares balefully in the direction of the voice, then wishes he hadn’t, because the voice is coming from a bright red phone that happens to be sitting in the very large hand of Oni Juujirou. Now it looks like Ryou’s a lame junior with no respect for his elders. Wiggling his bruised toes, he nods once and turns away, cursing that evil mobile game for causing him trouble yet again.

All he has to do is hold out for five minutes. Five minutes, and he can put the dumbbells down without looking like he’s quitting because he dropped them on himself. Ryou is better than that. He survived a whole dinner listening to the sprightly cries of the title call echo out around the food hall; he can handle a throbbing toe and a scary senior.

Netizen Roomba’s grating voice fills the air, rich with the inexplicable confidence characteristic of a shounen protagonist. “My balls are ready and my fingers are wriggly. Let’s hit it!”

Ryou watches in horror as Oni pulls out a hamster-shaped game controller in its own hand-knit covering. The track he has chosen is reminiscent of the Enka songs that Ryou sometimes hears when he visits his grandmother, if his grandmother also had a pet lion who roared in the background throughout each song.

This is not what Ryou had signed up for when he’d agreed to attend this training camp. _A place to grow your skills and gain recognition under the watchful eye of elite coaches_ , the invitation had said. _The birthplace of every successful Japanese tennis player_ , the website had boasted. Ryou hadn’t read the fine print, but he’s certain it hadn’t mentioned anything about having one’s doubles-partner-for-life stolen away by heavy metal Enka and virtual boys with wriggly fingers.

 _“_ I could hit a hundred more balls!” Roomba-kun booms, signalling the end of the song. Ryou takes the opportunity to lay his dumbbells carefully back on the rack and flee to the safety of his own room.

 

He’s barely opened the door when the strains of a familiar melody sink into his ears. They sound vaguely like the tune he’d been whistling during his workout, but now that he’s hearing them properly, he’s also starting to make out lines like _smash into your heart_ and _love game for eternity_ among the lyrics.

Choutarou looks up when he enters, and for one beautiful moment, Ryou thinks they might be okay after all.

Then he realises that Choutarou is sitting on the wrong bed. Oishi and Kikumaru are hovering on either side, brushing their knuckles together every time they lean in to point something out. “Oishi can be _really_ aggressive,” Kikumaru says, tapping the screen happily. “We were playing this RPG together one time – KaiPara, remember? – and he didn’t even wait for me to catch up before he started attacking the Yakiniku Monster.”

“It was spouting sacrilege,” Oishi growls. His eyes darken, but a light touch from Kikumaru brings him back to himself. “Besides, this and that have nothing to do with one another. Speaking of which, though, Eiji was helping me grow pumpkins in KaiPara once – not the RPG; the other one, remember? – and he was clicking around so fast I could swear he’d grown another ten fingers.”

“You really are fast,” Choutarou says admiringly. Ryou feels himself suppress a growl of his own. “Is that how you got that high score?”

“Which – Oh!” Oishi blushes; he glances at Kikumaru, a shy smile playing across his lips, and a thread of silent understanding forms between the two of them.

“We did that one together,” says Eiji. This time when he brushes his knuckles against Oishi’s it most definitely isn’t accidental. “Oishi played the left side and I took the right.”

Something bright and hopeful grows in Choutarou’s eyes. “Shishido-san,” he starts, but Ryou has seen enough.

“I’m going to Gakuto’s,” he mutters, stumbling blindly back out the door and into the corridor. There’s a brief pause before the door swings shut, closing off the warm light of their room, and Ryou drags himself to Gakuto’s room with a storm raging in his stomach, a bitter lump stuck in his throat.

 

“This is why we need allies,” Gakuto hisses, when Ryou recounts the night’s events to him. “The SMADp (Save Mobage Addicted Doubles Partners) cause can’t survive with just the two of us. You saw Yuushi tonight – he needs professional help. Ohtori’s almost past the point of no return.”

“What are you saying?” Ryou snaps, a bit testily, because even though he’s currently nursing a healthy concern for the future of their doubles partnership together, he resents the implication that Choutarou is anything less than perfect. It’s not his fault the cursed game has wormed its way into his mind. It got Ryou singing the theme during his workout and he doesn’t even have an account.

Gakuto rolls his eyes. “I’m saying we aren’t the only doubles pairs in this training camp. Yuushi and I are the best, so if he’s gone stupid there are bound to be other pissed off people too.”

Ryou doesn’t want to admit it, but Gakuto does have a point. “Doesn’t Marui like to pair up with people?” he asks. “Kuwahara doesn’t really seem the gaming type, but you never know…”

“Do you have eyes?” Gakuto wrinkles his nose, giving Ryou the sort of once over that’s usually reserved for Atobe when he’s being a particularly huge jerk. “No, forget that. You could have a hundred pairs of eyes and you still wouldn’t see anything but Ohtori. Anyway, Jackal is super into rhythm games. He loves that idol one, you know, ManDori or something.”

“So we should target Marui, then,” Ryou concludes. He’s about to congratulate himself on his excellent powers of deduction when Jirou bounds into the room, diving onto the lower bed across from them. He settles in next to Marui, who’s been popping gum with his headphones in for almost three hours now, if Gakuto is to be believed.

“I’m pretty sure it’s the same piece of gum, too,” Gakuto says, peering down at him. “He usually switches out every few minutes.”

“You think that’s a sign he might be frustrated?” Ryou asks hopefully.

For some reason, Gakuto doesn’t seem quite as excited. “If only,” he mutters. “Anyway, forget about those two. I’ve made a list of potential targets, so we can start going through them tomorrow.”

“Amazing!”

Ryou brightens. “Oh, Jirou? Were you listening in?”

“Marui-kun, that’s amazing! Super amazing! Incredible!”

Gakuto snorts. “With that guy here, as if he’d be listening to _you_.”

They peek over the edge of the bed, but Marui still has his headphones in. He doesn’t seem to be doing any fancy gum-popping tricks either; if anything, his bubbles have become so pitiful Ryou wonders what the point of blowing them is. Unable to contain his curiosity, Ryou clambers down the ladder. They make it just in time to see Marui drum out a complex rhythm against his phone, index finger tapping the screen so fast Ryou’s vision blurs. JIrou’s cries of amazement fill the air, but Ryou feels his heart sink.

Gakuto reclines back onto the pillows, having not bothered to come down with him. “I did warn you.”

“GENIUS CAKESHOP isn’t even a good song,” Ryou yells back in frustration, only to find himself on the receiving end of Jirou’s furious glare. “Ow, Jirou, stop pelting me with lollies – that’s going to leave a bruise – ow!”

 

When he wakes the next day, Ryou is aching mentally, physically, and emotionally. _Good workout last night_ , he tweets. He’s not about to admit a good portion of the pain is due to Jirou’s lolly assault. Some of those candies should come with a warning.

Choutarou likes his post ten minutes later – not that Ryou’s been staring at the screen waiting for a response – and that’s enough to ease some of the fatigue in his heart. Having a doubles partner really is the best.

“Morning,” he calls cheerfully to Gakuto, who’s glaring daggers at Oshitari. “Why the long face?”

Gakuto’s switches targets. “You’re such a snake,” he accuses, pursing his lips and hissing out a long breath, a poor imitation of Seigaku’s Kaidou. Ryou feels genial enough to laugh. “Ohtori likes one of your tweets and you act like you’re married again.”

“I’ve just cleared my mind,” Ryou says loftily. “I’m a reasonable doubles partner and Choutarou is allowed to have his own hobbies, as long as they don’t get in the way of our working relationship.”

Gakuto mutters something that sounds vaguely like _should be taking the ‘working’ out of that_ , but Ryou is already on his way to the pancakes station. A tiny pang of guilt hits him when Gakuto joins him in line. Usually Oshitari is the one doing the rounds while Gakuto snoozes at the table. Not every doubles partner is as sweet and considerate as Choutarou. Now that he thinks about it, Choutarou is usually a five-minute liker instead of a ten-minute liker, too.

“Listen,” Ryou whispers, “that was a bit lame of me. Where’s your list?”

“Don’t force yourself,” Gakuto says, but he passes the piece of paper over without comment.

“ _Hitouji Yuuji?_ ”

“Yes?”

Ryou blinks. He hadn’t realised Gakuto’s proposed target was there in line with them; even knowing that it’s him, Ryou is finding it difficult to associate his vague memories of Shitenhouji’s imitation genius with the person standing before him. The signature green headband is gone and there are dark circles under his eyes. He looks worse than Jirou did that one time he tried not sleeping during practice.

Ryou looks at Gakuto. Gakuto makes shooing motions at him. “We, uh. You don’t happen to play SIF, do you?”

Hitouji rears back as if slapped. “Don’t talk about that _homewrecker_ in front of me.”

While Ryou has some questions about Hitouji’s choice of descriptors, he’s satisfied with the answer they have received. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and the SMADp cause is in need of any allies it can find. “No, no,” he says, aiming for soothing. From the way Gakuto eyes him, he hasn’t succeeded. Whatever. If Gakuto has problems with Ryou’s recruiting strategy, he can talk to people himself. “I think you’ll find we have the same opinions about it as you.”

“Have your lovers been cheating on you too?”

Ryou doesn’t really know how to answer that, but Hitouji must take his silence as affirmation. By the end of breakfast, Ryou has heard more about Shitenhouji’s ‘Romance of the Millenium’ than he cares to know, and they’re still no closer to coming up with a concrete plan. Beside him, Gakuto has given up all pretence of listening and is stuffing his face with pancakes instead.

“…And he came to my house with _flowers_ , can you believe? He said he was sorry for making me sad, and that I was the only one for him after all. He ran off with the kendo club captain the next day, but I knew he wasn’t serious. Koharu always…He gets insecure too, so I have to show that I love him. I’d do anything for him, you know?”

“Uh huh.” Ryou scans the room. Choutarou still hasn’t come down to breakfast, but Ryou wants to be the first to greet him when he does. Hitouji is looking expectantly at him; Ryou hurriedly scans his brain for a snapshot of what the conversation’s progressed to. “It’s good to show your dedication?” he guesses. He isn’t expecting Hitouji to turn serious all of a sudden, his eyes glinting with renewed determination.

“That’s it,” he declares, slamming his palms on the table. “I gave up too easily. I need to show Koharu that I’m better than Netizen Roomba and all of his other 2D teammates! I’ll crush Ike Menzo to the ground! I’ll…I’ll become the No. 1 ranker and claim Koharu’s love as my ranking reward!”

“Wait, what?”

“Thank you, Love Master! I can sort of understand why Koharu might have been impressed by you in spite of your ugliness! Please stay away from him!”

“Oi, hold on!”

Hitouji bows deeply and runs off, presumably to download the cursed game. Ryou stares after him in disbelief, but Gakuto is already putting his hands together as if paying respects at a grave.

“This was your idea,” Ryou says resentfully.

Gakuto shrugs, unrepentant. “Worth a shot.”

 

Zaizen Hikaru has a trending thread on Tenitter the next time Ryou opens the app to complain about his morning. _Netizen Roomba’s hobby is home cleaning, but according to some people, he’s a homewrecker_. The wording sets soft alarm bells off in Ryou’s head, and he opens the thread with a sinking feeling.

 _I was getting breakfast at training camp when I saw one of my Embarrassing Loser Senpai chatting to someone from another team,_ Zaizen writes, then proceeds to give a blow-by-blow commentary of the excruciating story Ryou had been subjected to that morning. Ryou’s one saving grace is that Zaizen hasn’t pointed him out specifically as Hitouji’s confidante; perhaps it’s gratitude for being an avid reader of Zaizen’s other blog, _my senpai are losers_. Perhaps Zaizen is just saving the information for a juicier scoop later.

The replies to the thread are scathing. _geniusly_ writes ‘some people are no fun’ and inexplicably receives two hundred likes. _P0NTAN_ posts a meme of Netizen Roomba and a vacuum cleaner, replacing the dust with ‘h8ers’ written in 36pt Comic Sans.

“I could do better,” Ryou says, showing Gakuto his screen.

Gakuto grunts. “You have like, twenty followers.”

“If I replied to one of Zaizen’s posts gushing about Ike Menzo I’d get likes even if I had no followers.” The seed of a brilliant idea starts to grow in Ryou’s chest. “Wait, Gakuto, how many fake HooYa mail accounts can you make at once?”

“I have at least five spare from that time I tried to flame Yuushi,” says Gakuto. “Why?”

Ryou nods. “So you have experience. We’ve got to create some discourse. There are tons of reasons why SIF sucks – we just have to open other people’s eyes to them.”

“We can make Tootle Play and iTeens accounts too,” says Gakuto. His eyes start to sparkle, and Ryou realises that he hasn’t seen Gakuto look this lively since Oshitari got sucked into virtual interior decorating. The thought makes his heart clench; Gakuto’s a brat at the best of times, but he doesn’t deserve this.

“We’ll leave 0-star reviews and lower its rating,” Ryou says. In his mind he sees SIF’s ranking fall, crashing from the Top App lists to the realms of the forgotten, just like that bathtub-decorating mobage Oshitari had been into last year, FuroBas.

“I think the lowest rating you can leave is 1-star.”

“Whatever.” This is the best plan they’ve come up with so far, and they don’t even need to sit through Hitouji’s whinging to implement it. “Let’s take this thing down.”

 

It turns out that when a game has over twenty thousand reviews with an average rating of 4.8, twenty accounts leaving 1-star reviews isn’t going to do much to change that. To make matters worse, Ryou is finding it more difficult than he expected to find bad points to talk about. He can trash most of the characters easily enough, but in exchange he had to read the profile for silver-haired Kotori Shoutarou, who is objectively perfect and has no flaws at all. _Shoutarou deserves better than the game he’s in_ , Ryou thinks regretfully, before sending another review, this time decrying the option to paint one’s walls chartreuse.

“How are you going?” he asks Gakuto as they’re heading down for lunch. “Man, those cheese sandwiches smell good.”

“Not great,” Gakuto admits. “Yuushi’s still ranting to his cousin over the phone, but they’re not arguing anymore. If anything, the situation’s worse than before.”

Ryou winces. “Are any of your posts gaining traction?”

“The one insulting the Batobe Corporation got some loser trying to argue with me over everything, but apart from that most people are just reporting. I’ve had six accounts frozen for spam and malicious content already.”

That wasn’t how things were supposed to go. Ryou curses. He’d thought it was such a good plan, too. “At least nobody knows it was us, right?”

“Don’t worry,” Gakuto assures him. “I know how to cover my tracks. I’m more worried about you. You do realise that ‘lame’ isn’t the only insult in the world, right? At this rate, even Ohtori’s going to figure it out.”

“Shishido-san?”

All the colour drains from Ryou’s face. Forcing a smile on his face, he turns to Choutarou, hoping desperately that Choutarou hasn’t heard anything incriminating. “What is it, Choutarou?”

“I was just thinking we could get lunch together.” Choutarou holds up a lunchbox. “I thought I’d try cooking today – One of Bibumaru Aiji’s special skills is cooking, you see, so I was a little bit inspired…”

It seems the Force is with him today. Colour drains back into Ryou’s face, turning it a brilliant red. “I was just thinking I’d gotten sick of the cafeteria food,” he says, ignoring Gakuto’s jab to his stomach. “Where do you want to go?”

Gakuto’s envious gaze follows them down the hallway. Ryou makes a mental note to corner Oshitari later; even if he can’t do anything about Oshitari’s mobile game addiction, he can at least threaten to smash his phone or something. Before long, though, all his attention has been stolen by the look on Choutarou’s face. They sit at one of the benches in the courtyard, the breeze carding through Choutarou’s hair, and Ryou doesn’t even care that the lunchbox he receives has a seaweed cut-out of Netizen Roomba blanketing the rice.

“It feels like it’s been a while since we sat together for lunch,” Choutarou says softly. “You’ve been getting along well with Gakuto the past few days.”

Ryou shrugs. “Childhood friends and all that. Oshitari’s been a jerk to him.”

The corners of Choutarou’s eyebrows turn down, making him look even more like a kicked puppy. Belatedly, Ryou realises that he’s probably triggered Choutarou’s saviour complex, and that he’s going to have to fend off questions about the reason for the Oshitari-Mukahi spat for the next few minutes.

To his surprise, Choutarou just shakes his head and clutches his lunch tighter. “Oshitari-san must be feeling upset about it too,” he says, almost to himself. “It’s no excuse to take things out on Gakuto-san, of course, but…”

“What are you talking about?” Shishido asks. The only sign of distress he’s seen from Oshitari over the past three days are related to his own poor design sense.

Choutarou hesitates. “I know you don’t play mobile games much, Shishido-san, but I downloaded one recently – SIF, you remember?”

Ryou remembers. He couldn’t forget about it if he asked Atobe to serve directly into his forehead, because the gaping absence of Choutarou in his life would be a constant reminder of it. Choutarou shuffles closer on the bench; Ryou’s arm goes up to cover his shoulders on instinct.

It’s a good instinct, because the tension falls from Choutarou’s shoulders at once. “I really like it,” he explains. “The story is so good, and I love the characters, and it’s so fun to play. But there are these people saying horrible things about it on Tenitter – they don’t even have the courage to put their names to their complaints – and I know I shouldn’t give them attention, but it hurts to see these people saying bad things about the game I love so much.”

Ryou thinks he might throw up. For the first time, he begins to doubt the validity of his cause. SMADp was supposed to be a noble campaign, a way to restore the bond he and Choutarou share. It wasn’t supposed to make Choutarou look like this, close to tears over a game he’s too good for. Ryou’s partner is too soft-hearted for his own good.

“That sucks,” Ryou says, squeezing Choutarou’s shoulder. He tells himself that mobile games are traps, and that Choutarou would have ended up like this in the end anyway, because gacha is a lie and Choutarou loves too much too easily; he tells himself that rankings are harsh and he’s doing the same thing any responsible doubles partner would by trying to save Choutarou from the clutches of addiction.

He still feels like a massive jerk.

 

“You think you’re so smart, don’t you.”

Atobe is waiting for him when he gets back to the dormitories. He’s leaning against the wall as if it makes him look cool, arms folded over his chest. Ryou knows immediately that this is the prelude to a lecture. At this point, he’s almost convinced that he deserves it.

“Shove off,” he growls. “I don’t have time to listen to this.”

“I can see right through you,” Atobe says, waving his hand in front of his face. “This plan of yours isn’t going to end well.”

Ryou’s just had lunch with Choutarou and he should be full of renewed energy, but instead he just feels drained. “You don’t know anything,” he says. “That game’s a curse and you’re all too blind to see it.”

“Everyone needs a break sometimes,” Atobe says loftily. Now that Ryou is looking, he can see all the signs – red eyes, dark bags, a compulsive twitching of the fingers. “The masses converge at games arcades to throw coin for entertainment; what makes this any different?”

Everything clicks into place. “Ah, so you’re a whale.”

“I am a generous patron,” Atobe says. He whips out his phone and thrusts it in Ryou’s face. He has a full card album, Ryou realises. He doesn’t want to think about how much that must have cost. The number of rainbow gems is dizzyingly high.

“This is what your parents work to fund,” he says blankly, but Atobe probably owns SIF by now. If it weren’t for Atobe’s strange sense of pride, Ryou would suspect that Atobe’s account is a cheat. As it is, he’s already starting to develop some theories about which character might be Atobe’s self-insert. Another horrifying thought strikes him. “Don’t tell me you’re the one responsible for making the rose-filled bathtub a default decorating item in the latest update.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Atobe scoffs. “That bathtub was added by popular demand. Both Oshitari and St. Rudolph’s Mizuki have responded very positively to the decision.”

Watching Atobe gesture at his screen with wild eyes, Ryou feels that perhaps this task was too much for him and Gakuto to undertake alone. He’s not just fighting for Choutarou – he’s opposing the infinite pockets of the Atobe Corporation, the natural susceptibility of the human species to fall prey to rigged risk-reward opportunities.

Atobe’s phone pings with a new notification. He makes a wounded noise as he clutches it, and Ryou catches a glimpse of a shiny new scout announcement before he takes advantage of the distraction to escape.

 

“I think we should rethink our strategy,” Ryou says, plopping down next to Gakuto, who’s looking shiftier than usual; it’s like he can’t stay still, and he keeps glancing at Oshitari. Even more surprisingly, Oshitari is staring warmly back at him.

“I was about to talk to you about that, actually,” says Gakuto. His lips quirk up as Oshitari mouths something at him. “Look, I think we should call it off.”

Ryou’s mind blanks. “You what?”

“It’s not working,” Gakuto says. “We’ve given it our best shot, so maybe now we should just wait it out. If it’s really sucks as much as you think it does, it’ll pass eventually, right?”

“As much as _I_ think it does?” Ryou’s voice rises; he knows he’s catching the eyes of the tables around them, but he can’t bring himself to care now that his only ally is abandoning him. “What happened, Gakuto? Weren’t we in this together?”

Gakuto shoots him a guilty look. “Marui and Jirou were playing again and they invited me to watch…It’s really kind of fun, once you get past the tutorial. The songs aren’t bad either. And now they’ve added rankings for the My Spaces, so I can prove to Yuushi that his decorating skills suck.”

“And you called _me_ a snake,” Ryou hisses. Personally, he thinks his impression of Kaidou Kaoru is far superior to Gakuto’s; some of the eavesdroppers visibly flinch and look away. “You’re a traitor to the cause.”

“I’m making an effort!” Gakuto shouts. “I’m at least _trying_ to understand why my doubles partner might think this game is as good as playing tennis with me, instead of sneaking around behind his back trying to destroy what he loves!”

“He’s supposed to love _me_ ,” Ryou shouts back. “You’re as much a part of this as I am. It’s pathetic that you’ve given into a _stupid_ game like SIF just to get Oshitari’s attention.” A few startled gasps arise from their audience. “Yeah, I said what I said. SIF sucks! it’s probably going to shut down in a year or two anyway!”

In the ringing silence that follows Ryou’s declaration, somebody steps forward. “Is that how you really feel, Shishido-san?”

It’s too late to turn back time. “You can be angry if you want,” Ryou says quietly. He doesn’t dare look Choutarou in the eye.

“I am angry,” Choutarou says. His voice trembles; he has never used this tone with Ryou before. “More than that, I’m disappointed. I thought you were better than this, Shishido-san.”

 

The gym empties out when he walks in. Ryou hasn’t stopped to look in a mirror, but he knows he must look terrible. He turns the treadmill up high and fills his ears with the pounding of his feet on the rotating mat, feeling the shock of every step shudder through his body. It sets fire to his lungs, bruises his soles, and does nothing for the hollowness in his chest.

Choutarou had said he was angry, that he was disappointed. He hadn’t lied, but every line of his body in that moment had also screamed _I am hurt_. Ryou had seen disappointment on Atobe’s face following his loss to Tachibana; he knows how to grovel, how to work, how to beg for a second chance knowing he might not get it. He knows anger; he knows what it’s like to have frustration build in your body with no escape. Before tonight, he would have said he knew hurt.

Now he knows he had only been thinking of his own shallow, selfish hurt. He hadn’t known a single thing about Choutarou’s pain.

What had been his goal?

Ryou thinks of Choutarou’s soft smile, his iron determination, the way he protects and defends the things that are important to him. He thinks of Choutarou taking the time in the morning to like Ryou’s inane tweets, make two sets of lunches so they could spend time together.

If there’s one thing Ryou hates more than SIF, it’s being lame.

 

 _Meet me on the tennis court_ , Ryou sends, then adds, _please_. It’s oddly formal wording for him, but he hopes Choutarou will hear the apology behind it. As much as he knows Choutarou isn’t the sort of person to leave someone hanging, no matter how angry he might be, Ryou can’t help feeling nervous as he paces up and down the court, waiting for Choutarou to join him.

After what seems like an eternity, he hears Choutarou’s long strides stop a short distance away. “I’m here, Shishido-san.”

Ryou’s palms are sweaty and gross. He wipes them on his shorts, forgetting he’s still holding his phone, and it clatters to the ground, spinning just out of reach. His screen lights up the space between them. “Listen, Choutarou, I – ”

“Shishido-san.”

Ryou shuts up.

“I was really hurt by what you said tonight,” Choutarou begins. “It was immature of me, but I honestly wondered how many other secrets you were keeping from me.” He steps closer to Ryo, who continues to look stubbornly at his phone screen lying there on the court. “But, Shishido-san, you really aren’t that sort of person, are you? I was thinking back over what you said, and I think I was focussing on the wrong thing. I’m sorry, Shishido-san.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Shishido snaps, unable to keep silent any longer. He has some idea of the sort of person Choutarou thinks he is, and in the past he’d thought he was doing his best to live up to Choutarou’s ideal, but he’s not like that at all. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“That doesn’t matter,” Choutarou says earnestly. He takes Ryou’s hands in his. “It doesn’t matter if you were hurt, Shishido-san. Back at dinner, do you remember the first thing you said?”

 _He’s supposed to love **me**_.

Ryou’s throat closes over. His skin burns all the way from his ears to the tips of his toes, and it seems this is answer enough for Choutarou.

“Tell me,” he insists. “Is that how you really feel, Shishido-san?”

His voice is a thousand times softer than it had been at dinner. Ryou’s phone screen goes back, throwing them back into darkness, but Choutarou’s hands are still warm around Ryou’s, steady and supportive, waiting for Ryou to respond. “You know it is,” Ryou says forcefully, raising his head to look Choutarou in the eye at last. “I’m sorry for making you doubt it.”

“I deleted my account,” Choutarou blurts out suddenly. “It’s not worth it, if it was making you feel that upset.”

Ryou freezes. He wrenches his hands out of Choutarou’s grasp and dives for his phone, jabbing at his screen to unlock it again. “You can’t do that,” he says, stupidly. “I just made an account.”

Choutarou stares. Ryou stares back. After a long moment, Choutarou pulls Ryou into his arms and laughs, a wide, open sound of relief, his shoulders shaking as they embrace. “I have a transfer code,” he admits. “I couldn’t bear to get rid of it completely.”

“This is why I’m worried you’ll get addicted,” Ryou sighs, but he’s smiling, and from the way Choutarou kisses him after, their feelings are perfectly in sync.

 

“So I make mistakes,” Ryou says sullenly. “I’m not perfect, but I admit that, you know? I try my best!” He stares longingly at the Higa table, where Choutarou is engrossed in conversation with Kite. “What’s so bad about wanting a bit of quality time?”

“Oh, get over it,” scoffs Gakuto, snuggling against Oshitari’s shoulder while Oshitari yells incoherently at his phone. “It’s hasn’t even been a day.”

“Am I clingy?” Ryou asks the table at large. “I think I’m being reasonable, personally, but is this actually coming off as really lame? Is this something I need to work on?”

Nobody answers him, but Choutarou turns back to the Hyoutei table for a moment to smile brilliantly at Ryou, and really, that’s all he’s been asking for.


End file.
